discusses court sessions both past and present. guest inorda is our november. in december, american enterprise institute arthur brooks. in depth on c-span2's book tv, tell vision for serious readers. summer,ars ago this events quickly unfolded, leading on august 9, 1974, to the owner resignation of an american president. coming up next, the house judiciary committee from the evening of july 29, 1974. members debate in teaching president nixon for abuse of power. this was the second of three and -- mp should -- impeachment articles. first, timothy naftali, former nixon presidential library director, explains why article ii was at the heart. -- of the impeachment proceedings. and presidential power.

how the committee's vote continues to shape our understanding of >> joining us from new york is tim naftali who is the director of the library at new york university and former nixon presidential library director. thank you for being with us. we want to go back 40 years ago as the house was beginning to debate article ii of impeachment, the abuse of power. i want to have you set up what was happening within this congressional meeting. >> this was a very important element of the drama of the constitutional crisis. the second article is all about presidential abuse of power. and that got at the heart of what the framers were actually thinking about when they chose to put the possibilities of impeachment into the constitution. did they have a broad sense of what should be the reason?

or were they trying to seek a narrow reason? could you remove a president just for being a bad president? within the republican caucus and also within the democratic caucus, there were three southern democrats in the 21 member democratic caucus committee and there were some question as to what will be an abuse of power? and what kind of abuse of power would be impeachable? the debate is all about how first of all, could you prove the president did these things and are they impeachable? something else one has to keep in mind. all 38 members of the committee were lawyers. a number of them felt, look, we need evidence that we could convict the president of if we were -- if he were indicted on a felony. do we have the type of evidence

that proves that richard nixon knew about these abuses? and that is a whole different standard. what you have are questions about what the framers had in mind and questions of whether the activities that had been found out by the committee and by the senate were indeed impeachable and thirdly, can we prove that richard nixon knew about them and even authorized them? you have three big issues that the committee has been thinking about for months. and a debate highlights them. it had been more than a century since congress had debated the issue of impeachment. >> what was the president of that house judiciary meaning to take up the articles?

you've touched on the debate. what was the case against impeachment? >> well, there are three articles at issue. previous to this was article i. that is about the cover-up. could you prove that nixon participated and prevented the investigation of watergate? that was article one. by the time they started debating article ii, article i had been passed by a vote of -- i am sorry. article one had been passed by a vote of 27-11. you have six republicans who voted for article i. it is clear the committee already had a bipartisan for impeachment. it already happened. article i has been passed by

27-11 vote. this is the second article. this is all about whether nixon had misused his authority and actually used excessive power in a way that would conflict with the constitution and was in many ways criminal. the article itself highlights some of these activities. for example, the misuse of the fbi. seeking files from the fbi to embarrass, humiliate, or hurt one of the president's political opponents. daniel's name was not mentioned. dan shore of cbs, dan shore, was the object of a request of the fbi to humiliate him. there's a question of the use of

a plumber to break into daniel's office. did the president know about it? nobody in the committee doubted that the break-in of daniel's office was a criminal act. the question there was, did the president know about it and authorize it? then you have an issue of the irs. there was john dean that testified. was -- there was no question there was some kind of list. john dean was able to provide evidence and then a member of the treasury department supplied a list. the question was did what extent do richard nixon authorized the listing of the names, to what extent was it designed to go after political opponents?

then there was a question of the audit of larry o'brien, the head of the democratic national convention. the committee had some of the case. some of the tapes had been given to the committee. the president had released a few tapes following the saturday night massacre of 1973. one of the tapes from set timber -- september 1972 did show the president participating in a conversation about misusing the irs. what some wanting to protect the president said was, hey, that was one instance. in the heat of politics, people make mistakes. can you really say that one rant on one day constitutes a pattern of abuse of power? and were the framers wanted us

to remove a president which is a dramatic act in a democracy on the basis of evidence of one thing of wrongdoing? we cannot even prove that anybody acted on what the president said. maybe the next day, president nixon, say i had a headache, i did not feel well. the question for those who wanted to protect the president was whether the evidence alone proved one, a pattern of misconduct and two, it had risen to the level you expect it to remove a democratically elected president. >> let me conclude with this question. then a chance to see the debate from the 1974.

ultimately, it would have gone to the senate against the president? >> well, part of this debate occurs three days after the supreme court ruled in a u.s. v. nixon that the president would have to turn over some of the tapes. within a few days, washington would be rocked by transcripts of the june 23, 1972 tape which would be called the smoking gun. that would prove the president participated in a cover up. a number of the republicans who were both with the president in articles one and two would later say they were going to switch their vote if it came up to the entire house and they will vote for article i. this particular debate is

important for a different reason. it was not necessary to impeach nixon. he would've been impeached on article one and likely in the house and senate and in and inevitably in the senate. what this was about was the shift in the united states in the 1970's over public opinion of the imperial presidency. a lot of what richard nixon thought -- part of the reason richard nixon thought he was right to do what he did, he assumed the presidents before him had committed the same kinds of actions. and therefore, he was arguing others have done it. why take me to task to doing what others have done? this debate which is part of a larger national debate is about what we expect of our president. even though article ii was not required to impeach richard nixon, the fact that article ii

would be passed by a 28-10 margin including seven republicans was a signal that we had reached the high water mark in the imperial presidency and it was about to go down. congress realized that whether richard nixon wanted to or not, he had acted on impulses that presidents should not have in the constitution needed a little bit of help to ensure that in the executive branch did not overstep its bounds. after this, we will see a series of legislation including the surveillance act and ask regarding -- acts regarding presidential papers. acts signed by gerald ford. the american people said a note is enough.

-- enough is enough. actually, the presidency has gotten too powerful by making use of vague areas in the constitution. this debate may not have been necessary for the impeachment but it was a critical element in the changing thinking of americans about what to expect from their president. >> tim naftali who is with nyu and was nixon presidential library director joining us from new york. thank you for adding your voice and perspective to the debate we are about to show our audience. we'll take you back to july 29, 1974, the house judiciary meeting. for the next three hours, the evening debate over article ii of impeachment of richard nixon. >> themi